How Do Subscription Plan Changes and Proration Work?
Subscriptions rarely stay the same for their whole life. Customers upgrade, downgrade, pause, and cancel, and each change has a billing consequence: what is charged for the current period, what the next collection amount will be, and whether the underlying mandate or card agreement still covers it.
Handled well, plan changes are invisible to the customer. Handled badly — a debit for an amount the customer did not expect, or a collection after cancellation — they become disputes.
What is proration?
Proration adjusts a billing period's charge when a plan changes partway through it, so the customer pays for what they actually had. If a customer upgrades halfway through a month, they have used half a month of the old plan and will use half a month of the new one.
Common approaches:
- Immediate proration — charge or credit the difference for the remainder of the period at the time of the change.
- Adjust the next bill — apply the prorated difference to the next scheduled collection.
- Change at period end — the new plan and price only take effect from the next billing period, with no mid-cycle adjustment.
For debit order billing, adjusting the next bill or changing at period end is usually simpler than raising an extra mid-cycle debit, because every collection must match the mandate terms.
What happens on an upgrade or downgrade?
| Change | Current period | Next period | Mandate impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upgrade | Prorated charge or credit, or none if deferred | New, higher amount | Amendment if the new amount exceeds what the mandate allows |
| Downgrade | Usually takes effect at period end | New, lower amount | Usually none — lower amounts fit within existing terms |
| Pause | No further charges | Collections suspended | Suspend, do not cancel, the mandate |
| Cancel | Service until period end, per your terms | No collection | Cancel the mandate and stop card charges |
When does a plan change require a mandate amendment?
On card billing, changing the amount is straightforward as long as the customer agreed to the new price — each merchant-initiated charge simply reflects the current plan. See recurring card payments.
On debit orders the mandate is the constraint:
- An EFT debit order mandate must describe the amount or how it varies. If the new plan amount falls outside that wording, the mandate must be amended with the customer's authorisation and the required notice.
- A DebiCheck mandate carries a bank-confirmed instalment amount and maximum collection amount, plus any authorised adjustment category or rate. Increases within the authorised adjustment terms can be applied; increases beyond them, such as a large upgrade, require a mandate amendment that the customer confirms with their bank.
See DebiCheck amounts, frequencies and adjustments and the DebiCheck mandate lifecycle for how amendments work.
A practical design choice is to authorise a maximum collection amount with sensible headroom at sign-up, so routine upgrades and annual price adjustments fit without a new bank confirmation.
How should pauses and cancellations be handled?
- Pauses: stop collections for the pause period but keep the mandate or card token in place, so billing can resume without a new sign-up. Confirm the resume date to the customer.
- Cancellations: apply your notice terms, stop future collections, cancel the mandate and stop initiating card charges. Any collection after a customer has cancelled or withdrawn their mandate is likely to be disputed and reversed. See debit order disputes and stop payments.
What should you communicate to the customer?
For every plan change, confirm in writing: the new amount, when it takes effect, any prorated charge or credit, and the date of the next collection. Unexpected debit amounts are one of the most common causes of debit order disputes, and a short confirmation message prevents most of them.
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